Hannibal, that’s a commendable program, but doesn’t mitigate the fact that it’s the adult’s responsibility. It’s like telling kids not to eat so much chocolate cake and Cheetos because it’s bad for them, but providing access anyway.

John T

When my gun isn’t on my hip it’s either locked in the safe, or in the nightstand when I’m in bed. Anything else with kids in the house is just stupid. I do not use trigger locks, however, since they’ve been proven to add zero safety and all they do is give a criminal time to kill you will you’re fumbling to unlock it.

Nonsense, Harvey. I can assure you it’s just as easy to kill a human at close range with a hammer as a gun. The hardware store is full of things you can kill with that people leave in plain reach of kids. The uneducated just like demonizing some inanimate objects more than others.

Trey I’ll put my almost 64 years, raised with guns as tools, and two years in Nam against your bullshit any day of the week.

I have hammers, blacksmith, metal worker, carpenter, mason, from a couple of ounces to a treadle hammer that hits with the force of sixty pounds at speed. I can do more with them than you could ever imagine.

You are a freaking parrot that doesn’t know what you are talking about. It isn’t about demonizing guns. It’s about defining the kind of a person that only feels incomplete without one.

Trey, I wrestle with academia on a daily basis. Being educated no way no how has anything to do with smart.

The personal attack is because you did parrot a stupid defense for a totally ignorant concept. I have recently fired a 38 and a 45. Comparing them to a hammer can only be compared to equating a child’s Big Wheel to a Peterbuilt in a discussion about moving freight.

A five year old can squeeze the trigger on a gun. The bullet released can kill an adult. I can’t imagine a five year old using a hammer to kill an adult. Maybe you can imagine such a scenario, you’re a writer, share.

It’s obvious Trey that you haven’t handled non-Johnson man tools in a hardware story lately. The saws you mention are hard for a man to squeeze the trigger on and impossible for little people to use. The same is true of a nail gun. I have about six of each, yourself?

Trey brayed, ” a five year old properly trained will only squeeze the trigger on the range.
A five year old with a buzz saw or nail gun is as deadly as one with a gun. A five year old behind the wheel of a car is more deadly.”

Trey was right of course, about thirty years ago. You see saws today have interlocks that make using a saw almost impossible for the professional and absolutely impossible for anyone else. Nail guns, same thing, they will drive you crazy trying to work around all the fail-safe-child-proof-idiot-foiling mechanisms using one these days. And as for cars, can you imagine your five year old engaging the brake at the same time they change the shifter lever? That’s designed that way to protect us from kids with malice in their hearts towards everyone.

Am I the only one to notice that they same thought process hasn’t worked with hand guns? Could it be because people who feel the need for a handgun don’t want them to be safe? That having them safe would make it more difficult for them to operate because they are lame in the first place?

If we’re going to equate handguns with hammers, saws, nailguns, and automobiles let’s do it. Let’s get the personal responsibility, oops, sorry, dirty word, lawyers involved and make manufacturers liable for the ignorance of those who use their products.

You actually think it’s “personal responsibility” to “…make manufacturers liable for the ignorance of those who use their products.”

Why not just blame the person who *misuses* their products? Oh no. That’s too obvious. Got to go after everyone.

Of course, 99.999 percent of gun owners never *misuse* their firearms, nor have them misused by others. There is that.

So plan B, you want a legal shakedown and high tech lynching of the mean old businessmen who make a perfectly legal, in demand, and constitutionally protected object — an object wholly incapable of operating itself. By extension of legal shakedown, you’ll get to punish the 99.999 percent who never misuse the object. (And most of whom hit the range more often than cops ever do.)

Lacking any real sense or justification, it becomes an emotional appeal (for the children!) withers in light of the inconvenient facts. Gun accidents are ridiculously rare. More children die every year from bath tub accidents than from guns every year in America.

In fact, gun homicides and accidents (among all age groups) have declined steadily over the past two decades, even as the number of guns bought and sold in America have grown exponentially, and as laws were adopted in most states allowing people the freedom to carry a concealed weapon. (or two)

Harvey, guns aren’t unsafe. Most gun owners aren’t unsafe. In fact you’re safer around gunowners. This is why gun stores never get held up and no one messes with the cars in the parking lot at the gun show.

What’s unsafe is ignorant demagogues who fret over the fact that everyone else isn’t living as they think people should, and who get so foot-stomping angry in the face of logic, data and reason. (hi)

In conclusion, spit, sputter and gripe all you want, old-timer about these kids today. It won’t change a single thing. (But it may make you feel complete. And that’s nice.)